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Malignant

The Vomit Arsonist – That Which Has Been Forgotten (2019)

It is weird how the memory works. I have known TVM for a long time, but in my head they make the kind of noise that I do not like, chaotic, many high frequencies, etc. Then I was combing through Spotify to make a playlist of “vocal noise” the name passed by and I thought to take a quick listen just to make sure if I was right about not liking this project.

Spotify has this album released in 2020, Discogs says 2019 and I believe the latter. The Spotify listing is a reason for this review as I do not usually review older releases that I discover.

That said, putting on the album, the sound is exactly what I was looking for for my playlist. Heavy, dark industrial noise with extreme vocals. Damn this stuff is dark! Slow, pounding rhythms, typical noisy metal clanging and very heavy vocals. The music is not as harsh as it can get. Some tracks are almost dark ambient, but the vocals make obvious: this is noise.

Maybe not the best material in the style, but it seems that I have overlooked The Vomit Arsonist and that while exactly a decade ago I reviewed a mcd of theirs that I also liked.

Links: The Vomit Arsonist, Malignant.

Offerbeest – Afrika (2018)

Discogs.com

As the name of this project suggests, it is from the Netherlands. It means ‘sacrificial animal’. Offerbeest is actually one of the projects of the man behind Gnaw Their Tongues, an interesting dark doom metal project. I do not know if I knew if that came from my homeland though. He also appears to be active in the nice noise project Aderlating.

“Afrika” is the second of three Offerbeest albums and is released by Malignant, so well available (even though the physical copies are limited to 300).

It is but a half hour album with with noise music. Layers of distorted sounds, drumming or more industrial rhythms and distorted vocals. The album has a few nice tunes here and there. I like the tracks “I Am The One” and “Cut Out Their Hearts” which are fairly typical noise tracks with brutal vocals, but the other tracks are not too much to my liking. The sound is a bit too chaotic for me perhaps. Nothing to do about that.

You can listen to this album on Spotify or Bandcamp. When you want a physical copy, be quick about it.

Link: Malignant Records

Hadewych – Welving (cd 2018)

You can leave the making of weird music to Peter Johan Nijland. Nijland is probably better known for his project Distel, but he has other projects too and Hadewych is not a new project either. I know Hadewych’s previous full-length (untitled) in the 2009 rerelease, but judging Discogs I missed a range of smaller releases.

Hadewych found its way to Malignant Records which will certainly improve the spread of the release. “Welving” is an odd release on Malignant though. Just as on the debut, the music has quite a lot of guitar. Sometimes the music reaches towards (industrial) metal, most of the time it is dark and ‘droney’ though (with or without guitars), sometimes slightly ritualistic. The combination of guitars and dark electronics brings memories of bands such as Necro Deathmort or The Body. The mix between dark and ‘sweeter’ sounds made me think of Dream Into Dust as well. It is not like Hadewych really sounds like these bands, but just to give you an idea of the odd sound.

“Welving”, just as on Distel releases, contains poetic lyrics, often in Dutch. The album is somewhat short, but contains good to exceptionally good tracks.

Indeed, recommended!

Links: Hadewych, Malignant Records

Stromstad – New Devoted Human (cd 2017)

I actually ran into this on Bandcamp, a website that I rarely use to look for music. I was pretty impressed by the quick scan of the album.

Stromstad proves to contain members of Strom.Ec and Kristoffer Nystrom’s Orkester (hence the name, I guess).

“New Devoted Human” contains industrial and raw noise. Not too extreme, with good pulsating rhythms and rough vocals. These tracks are pretty damn good. On vinyl the last track of side A is a dark ambient track and the last track of side B an ambient track. These two tracks are the least interesting of the release, especially the closing track, and the release is only 36 minutes.

A couple of great tracks, but not not for a long spanning time.

Link: Malignant

Analfabetism – Skammen (cd 2017)

The previous album was also released on Malignant and contains an excellent piece of “ambient noise”. Dark and thundering distorted sounds and a very good atmosphere. The latest album opens with a dark ambient track that is somewhat noisy and nicely dark. The rest of the album seems to lean more towards dark ambient than towards noise though. For a dark ambient album “Skammen” is still pretty noisy, but the previous album sounds (to me) more like an ambient version of noise.

There is a very noisy outburst in the third track though that just may be loud enough to scare away some dark ambient lovers, but other tracks are too ambient, even ‘soundscapish’ for people who like noise. Overall the style is rawer and perhaps even more industrial than many dark ambient releases, so do not think that me using the term means that this sounds anything like Raison D’Être.

I personally found “Av Hjord Är Du Kommen” much more convincing, the new new album is still a descent one if I feel more ambient some time.

Link: Malignant

Analfabetism ‎* Av Hjord Är Du Kommen (cd 2015)

I have missed this Malignant until I accidentally ran into it on Spotify. The album is good enough to buy, so I got myself a ‘physical copy’ as well.

Analfabetism makes deep, rumbling noise. Or perhaps it is noisey dark ambient. The ‘tag’ “ambient noise” that I use for projects such as Land:Fire, Gnawed or Isomer. These are the less extreme projects, I also use the ‘tag’ for harscher projects such as Theologian or IRM, but Analfabetism is more to the ambient side of “ambient noise”.

The album is has noisier and more ambient parts, but overall it is pretty filthy and dark, just the way I like it.

Link: Malignant

Gnawed * Pestilence Beholden (cd 2016)

Thank you Noise Receptor for letting me know about the new Gnawed. I like the previous “Feign And Cloak” album quite a bit and I now see that I also thanked Noise Receptor for bringing that release to my attention.

“Pestilence Beholden” opens with a few pieces of dark ambient, but within the third track we go over to the death industrial style from the previous album. Well, maybe not exactly, the new album seems a little less as extreme as its predecessor, which also has more higher frequencies and overall a more noise-feeling.
The music is still very slow, somewhat rhythmic, with soundscapish tones and here and there highly distorted vocals. Maybe more like a ‘doom’ kind of industrial.

I like the new album. I think I prefer the rougher edge of “Feign and Cloak”, but the latest release may be more fitting to play when reading or something.

Links: Gnawed, Malignant Records

Steel Hook Prostheses ‎* Calm Morbidity (cd 2016)

Apparently the first Steel Hook that I review. This is weird, because I have known this American project for quite some time. I guess I never came to buy any of their releases or I just never came to really listen to them before I started to enjoy noise better.

“Calm Morbidity” is not the first release on Malignant, a label that seems to be shifting more and more towards noise.

The album contains the wall-of-sound type of noise, dark, slow, dense, with extremely distorted vocals, but also more dark ambient tracks. I like this dark type of noise that is not as chaotic as some other styles. The album is not terribly good or varied, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Links: Steel Hook Proestheses, Malignant Records

Theologian ‎* Pain Of The Saints (2cd 2015)

The productive Lee Bartow recorded 2,5 hours of music that Malignant released on a double cd. Whereas I mostly like Theologian for its oppressive and dark type of noise, this double cd contains a range of styles of industrial music. The noise forms part of the tracks on the first cd, but there is also more rhythmic noise type of music, dark ambient, ambient noise, softer rhythmical material or ‘general industrial’.

Much of the material is not as extreme as I am used to of this American project, but that is does not mean that the material is less interesting. It sounds like Lee Bartow is trying out different approaches and not without merit. “Pain Of The Saints” is an interesting release for when you are in the mood of 2,5 of extreme music.

Link: Malignant Records

Gnawed ‎* Feign And Cloak (cd 2014)

Many thanks to Noise Receptor for this excellent suggestion. The project’s name sounds somehow familiar. This is possible, since it has released quite a number of albums (including several splits), but the labels do not really ring bells, so I doubt I ever heard anything of Gnawed. Now this American project got the possiblity to release an album through Malignant which will certainly help to raise its name. The album is even available on Deezer (but not on Spotify)!

“Feign and Cloak” contains a piece of dense and dark death indutrial. Mostly low frequency walls of noise, often with aggressive vocals; my kind of noise. Think of Ex.Order, Operation Cleansweep, Trepaneringsritualen. The music is often slowly rhythmical and highly distorted. Industrial noise, so to say.

Yep, an excellent album!

Links: Gnawed, Malignant Records